HWD DAILY

The Making of Meatballs

Happy Thursday, folks. Twitter has informed me that today is somehow both National Fried Chicken Day and International Kissing Day. Do with that what you will. Kiss all the fried chicken you see.

Yohana Desta here, with an exciting oral history of Meatballs, some tingling Spidey senses, and the latest on CBS’s Hawaii Five-0 nightmare.

GOING BACK TO CAMP NORTH STAR

If you can believe it, there was once a time when Bill Murray wasn’t a certified movie legend, when Ivan Reitman didn’t have a number of hits under his belt, and when Harold Ramis was just an unknown comedy scribe. That all changed with Meatballs, the 1979 summer camp comedy that introduced the trio to the mainstream, paving the way for future hits like Ghostbusters and Stripes. Nearly 40 years later, Eric Spitznagel has put together an oral history of the raucous comedy for VF.com, chatting with everyone from Reitman to casting director Jack Blum.Russ Banham, who played Bobby Crockett, painted a funny picture about that moment in time, recalling that Dan Aykroyd was originally supposed to play the lead character, Tripper (which later went to Murray). “We show up for the movie, and there’s Bill Murray. And we’re like, [deflated] ‘Oh. It’s the new guy from S.N.L. [Sighs] O.K.’” A simpler time!

YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD BLOCKBUSTER

If all the numbers are right, Spider-Man: Homecoming is going to be a very, very big hit. Anthony D’Alessandro and Nancy Tartaglione of Deadline report that the film is projected to earn about $100 million this weekend at the domestic box office, and $190-$210 million overseas. It’s a higher sum than Sony’s own projection, which pits the teen reboot at $80-$95 million. Still, that’s a lot of zeroes for a franchise being launched for the third time this century. This time around, Homecoming is worth all the hype, a light-hearted teenage adventure with great twists and a winning cast. Tom Holland makes for a perfectly nerdy, large-hearted Peter Parker, breathing new life into a role we’ve seen again and again on the big screen. Now he’ll be a proper movie star to boot.

A CLIMATE OF ICE AND FIRE

VF.com’s Hillary Busis e-mails:

Like Game of Thrones, but wish Internet discussions of the show were even nerdier? If so, you’ll be absolutely thrilled by V.F. contributor Jane Borden’sin-depth conversation with climate scientists, who gamely explain to laypeople how nearly every aspect of our current climate crisis has a spiritual doppelgänger in Westeros (or Essos!). For example: you almost certainly know already that the White Walkers represent the fearsome threat of everlasting environmental destruction, a looming disaster that can be averted only if a horde of fighting factions put aside their differences to work for the greater good. But did you realize that Yara Greyjoy and Hillary Clinton have followed similar paths, or that Tyrion— “a party-boy womanizer who also has this moral center and has a lot of money”—is a dead ringer for climate warrior Leonardo DiCaprio?

WORLD WAR 70

May I have your attention, film snobs and Christopher Nolan aficionados? This summer, you’ll be able to see Dunkirk, the director’s take on the WWII battle, in 70mm in 125 theaters across the country, Warner Bros. has announced. Brent Lang of Variety reports that it’s the “widest release in the format in 25 years, a testament to director Christopher Nolan’s clout and belief in the superiority of these screenings.” The last director to do something on this scale was Quentin Tarantino, who in 2015 similarly insisted on rolling out The Hateful Eight into 100 theaters, while also releasing a longer, three-hour version that had a built-in intermission. “I have been a longtime proponent of film—particularly the Imax film format—as a storytelling medium,” Nolan said in a statement. “The immersive quality of the image is second to none, drawing the audience into the action in the most intense way possible.”

WRITER’S BLOCK

Even though we’re living in the age of Peak TV and big budget blockbusters, it’s still a tough time to be a Hollywood writer. This was made abundantly clear by a recent announcement from the Writers Guild of America West, which said that earnings for industry scribes in 2016 were down 3.1 percent. Dave McNary of Variety reports that this is an uncertain time for writers, particularly the WGA West, which has about 9,000 members. “Total covered earnings for WGA West members topped $1.2 billion for the third consecutive year, but the number of writers reporting earnings slid by 3.5 percent to 5,227,“ he writes. And there are more stark figures, including the 6.4 percent decline in screenwriter earnings, and a 5.3 percent decline in collected residuals. It’s no secret that writers often get the short end of the stick in show business, but these numbers show just how short that stick is.

HAWAII FIVE-NO

VF.com’s Laura Bradley e-mails:

CBS is still dealing with the controversy surrounding the deapture of Hawaii Five-0 stars Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park. The Eye, which has faced criticism of its overall lack of diversity in the past, claims that it was simply following precedent in paying Kim and Park, both supporting actors and both Asian, less than their (white) leading co-stars. In a column published Thursday morning, Variety’sSonia Saraiya puts it bluntly: “CBS made the wrong call.” Kim and Park might fall below Alex O’Loughlin and Scott Caan on the call sheet, Saraiya argues, but marketing materials for the show perpetually suggest an equal ensemble of four—a win for a network whose own entertainment chief, Glenn Geller, acknowledged last year that, on the question of diversity, “We need to do better, and we know it.” As Saraiya writes, “Apparently CBS is still finding it hard at times to put its money where its mouth is.”